Through the Bible in 2012

Day 4 Readings:

Genesis 5
Genesis 6
Psalm 7

Comments:

Chapter 5 is genealogy. The names probably mean very little to us. What do we learn from this chapter? Adam and Eve had another son after Cain and Abel, a son named Seth. People lived a long time in those days. The genealogy ends with Noah and his three sons. Undoubtedly there is more that we can glean from chapter 5. But people often get bogged down in details and then become discouraged. The Bible is, after all, a rather large book! We don't need to get bogged down and discouraged. There is time later to study more indepth. For now, let's move to chapter 6.

6:1-8 explains how humanity spiraled downward. Wickedness and evil prevailed and God was pained by this. God decides to wipe everything humankind from the face of the earth. But one man, Noah, found favor with God. God's plan is to destroy the world with a flood but save Noah. He instructs Noah to build an ark, or a boat. God will also establish a covenant with Noah and Noah's family. Noah is to bring two (male and female) of every animal with him into the ark.

Noah does as God instructs.

Ellsworth Kalas points out that chapter 5 reads like an obituary. In chapter five we are told not about people's lives, but we are told they lived and they died. (Except Enoch. Enoch apparently did not die in the traditional sense.) Kalas says that chapter 6 also is like an obituary. In chapter 6 we see the death of a society.

The story of the Bible is about a God who creates a good world, with very good people in it, and the struggle that ensues as sin, evil, wickedness become a part of the picture.